


The Selkie and the Werewolf

by alicat54c



Category: Fairy Tail, Mythology, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Creature!Stiles, Fairy Tale Style, Full Shift Werewolves, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Selkie Stiles Stilinski, a fanfic i will eventually edit into a real story, oh well, till then enjoy its first incarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 01:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13648317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicat54c/pseuds/alicat54c
Summary: Distressed, he began to pace the shoreline. What had he done wrong? Was there really no hope for him to ever find his howl?So distressed was the wolf, that he did not notice two brown eyes watching him from just beyond the braking point of the waves.The eyes ducked down under the water, only to appear again, closer and to the right. The head which held the eyes was shiny and black, with whiskers around a twitching nose. It continued ducking down and reappearing closer, until, at last, they were right by the shore.It watched the wolf. “What are you?”The wolf startled, casting about, until it sensed the figure still hidden under the gentle ripples of the waves.“What are you?” the wolf asked, fur along his back startled on end.“I asked you first.”The wolf shook out his tail, teeth pulling back in a growl. “I am a wolf.”“Oh,” it said. Then, “What is a wolf?”...A fairytale about a wolf and a selkie, and how they fell in love.





	The Selkie and the Werewolf

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this wanting to make a fairy tale fan fiction using our favorite sterek pair. This turned much less fan fiction than I intended. Right now I'm toying around with rewriting this as an original story (any interest?). But it's still a good story in it's first fan fiction incarnation.
> 
> Derek is the wolf, Stiles is the Selkie, and Scott is a baby seal.

…

Once, in a forest on a mountain, where the mists shrouded all but the highest peaks of stone, a young wolf lived with his family. He was very handsome, in ways that nature builds wildness, with black fur and vibrant eyes. He stood nearly as large as a bear, though his strength was more than equal to one, and his paws were swift and sure, no matter how treacherous or rocky the surface. 

The wolf had all the gifts and grace of his kind, save one. He could not howl. 

His sisters would tease him, nipping at his heels among the trees. “Come on, howl at the moon with us! Or do you have no voice?”

His mother would shush them, and pull the wolf to her side to clean his ears with a swipe of her rough tongue. “You will sing when the time is right for you to sing,” she would say. 

Time passes, and the wolf grew disheartened, for as his size and skill increased into the prime of his life, his howl still remained silent.

His uncle, a sly grey wolf with sharp eyes only blunted when looking upon his family, took the young wolf aside. “I’ve heard of a place where the sun touches the earth, where a great river, so wide you cannot smell where the opposite shore resides. Wolves who have ventured that far say the moon smiles at her likeness in the water, redoubling the fulness of her beauty. If you see such a sight, son of my sister, surely you will sing.”

The young wolf thanked his uncle, and, after bidding his mother and sisters farewell, set off that very day. 

He followed the sun’s path across the sky, only stopping to rest when it stilled at its height. He did the same under darkness, eyes fixed on the moon, praying that his song would come to him when he saw her true glory.

The wolf walked for a day, and a night, and a day again. Mountains leveled out into green mossed valleys, and he could no longer scent the edges of his pack's hunting grounds. Another day following a curving stream, and a night breaking from the water to traverse drying grasslands, full of scrubby brush, and rustling stalks tall enough to block out the sky whispering to the wind. 

He hunted deer when he could, rabbit when he couldn't, and small ground squirrel, until they too became scarce, leaving only creatures with scales instead of fur, as dry and tough as the rocky silt they inhabited. 

Another night and a day, and rocks crumbled into cavernous cliffs of sand. Paws dried and claws cracked, the wolf lifted his face to the air, lungs filling with the watery scent of salt and a sharp splash against the back of his throat he could not identify. The dunes shifted with each step, putting the wolf’s sure feet to the test, but he pressed on. He crested the last hill of sand, and would have gasped, had he the breath. 

There, stretched out before him, was another sky spread out over the land, each star and constellation mapped out perfectly on the rippling surface. And there, pride of place, hung the face of the moon, looking down into her full reflection.

The wolf could feel the heart in his chest beat, ready to burst in awe at the sight. He opened his mouth, ready, but no howl came. The song in his heart was still just out of his reach; no call to the moon forthcoming. A whine broke the back of his throat. Maybe he needed to get closer?

Sliding down the dune in a cantering gallop that tangled his legs, the wolf flopped to the shore. Heady salt assaulted his nose, and the soothing caress of water, pushing and pulling a curtain of skittering pebbles up and down the shore, caressed his ears and toes.

The wolf opened his mouth again, sure his howl would come; sure his being would call out and tangle with the intentions of nature about it. But still there was nothing.

Distressed, he began to pace the shoreline. What had he done wrong? Was there really no hope for him to ever find his howl? 

So distressed was the wolf, that he did not notice two brown eyes watching him from just beyond the braking point of the waves.The eyes ducked down under the water, only to appear again, closer and to the right. The head which held the eyes was shiny and black, with whiskers around a twitching nose. It continued ducking down and reappearing closer, until, at last, they were right by the shore.

It watched the wolf. “What are you?” 

The wolf startled, casting about, until it sensed the figure still hidden under the gentle ripples of the waves.

“What are you?” the wolf asked, fur along his back startled on end.

“I asked you first.”

The wolf shook out his tail, teeth pulling back in a growl. “I am a wolf.”

“Oh,” it said. Then, “What is a wolf?”

“I am!” the wolf snarled, teeth flashing.

The brown eyes ducked beneath the water again.

“Wait, please wait!” The wolf called out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“You didn’t scare me.” The eyes had reappeared, further from the shore this time.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry if I did.” The wolf stepped back from the water, and sat back on his haunches. 

The eyes coasted closer with the surf. “What are you doing here?”

The wolf hung his head. “I’m trying to find my howl.” And he explained his teasing sisters, his uncle’s hint, and the long journey from his home. “I’m here, and I see the moon reflected twice in the sky, but my howl is still silent.”

During his story, the eyes had drifted closer and closer to shore, until a mouth became visible, then a lightly furred neck, and flippers. The creature lifted itself out of the water with its forelimbs, and waddled closer to the wolf. “That is quite the story.”

The wolf blinked at its strange companion. “What are you? A wolf like me, but you’re much too beautiful.”

“I’m a seal,” the seal laughed, with a guffawing bark. “I live in the sea here.” He twisted his head nearly upside down. “Why is finding your howl so important to you?”

“I would not be much of a wolf without one.” The wolf flicked an ear, shifting to look out over the water. “It is...how I tell that I am here; how I tell others where I am, no matter the distance. I am less present, if I cannot tell others where I am. To them, it is as if I don't exist.”

The seal inched closer, until its whiskers brushed the edges of the wolf’s. “To not exist, when your figure cuts so finely the sea of the sky? That would be the greatest tragedy.” He straightened up. “And Since you’ve come all this way, it would be a shame for your quest to fail. I will help you find your howl.”

“Oh, thank you!” the wolf said. “But I don’t know where to start…”

The seal waggled a fin. “It must be around here somewhere, if your uncle sent you so far. What does it look like?”

The wolf wrinkled his brow, never having thought about it. “I don’t know. My mother’s is strong and loud, and feels like home. My uncle’s is higher, and likes to echo around the mountain so you can’t tell where he is. My elder sister’s is playful, and sneaks up when you least expect it, and my younger sister’s is just as good at hiding as she is.”

The seal hummed, then brightened. “Oh, I might know where it is! Follow me!” And he began to waddle back into the surf. Only when he was once again a hidden pair of eyes did he not notice his companion following. He swam back to shore. “Well, come on!”

The wolf took a step back. “I don’t like to swim. It gets my fur all wet.”

The seal swam closer. “Well, have you not tried taking off your fur?”

The wolf blinked again. “No. I don’t think I can do that.”

“It’s easy!” the seal chirped. “Like this!”

He ducked his head down and closed his eyes, till only the topmost part of his back and head were visible above the water. Then the seal stood up tall on two pale legs, his skin draped over his head and back like a cloak. He waded through the water, and more easily walked onto shore than before to stand beside the wolf. He smiled, and his teeth were flat and white.

“Now you try!” he barked.

The wolf shifted from paw to paw. “You have spots.”

The seal rubbed at a dark mole on his neck. “I have them when I’m wearing my fur too.” His hand dropped. “Now come on!”

The wolf shifted under his fur. “I’ve never taken off my fur before. Won’t I be cold?”

“It’s not too hard,” the seal said. “I learned from my mother. And if you get cold, you can just put it back on again.”

The wolf crouched down in the sand and closed his eyes. A seam previously unnoticed split down the wolf’s belly, and a hand full of long fingers pressed out, parting the fur like fabric. The wolf stood back up, even taller than the seal, and pushed his skin back so it rested on his head and shoulders.

“You didn’t get all the fur off,” the seal laughed, petting a hand down the wolf’s furry beard.

The wolf huffed. “Neither did you,” he said, indicating the cropped buzz of dark fur atop the seal’s head.

“That’s supposed to be there,” he scoffed, nose mockingly high in the air. “Besides, you’ve got more than me!”

The wolf tugged at his dark locks which hung around his ears, just as black as his fur. His skin slid low over his eyes, and he contemplated pulling it back on and running away.

The seal took his hand. “Come on, now you will swim!” And without another word, the seal leapt back into the waves. His skin wrapped back around him as he dove, and he waved his flippers invitingly up at the wolf.

The wolf wiggled his bare toes in the sand. Bundling his skin high on his shoulders, and tying it securely around his neck, he waded in after the seal.

“You swim funny,” the seal laughed, as the wolf paddled with his hands and hind feet to keep his head above the water.

The wolf snapped ineffectually at him, saltwater flooding his mouth, and the seal laughed again. “Where are you taking me,” the wolf spluttered, spitting water and brine off his tongue.

“Almost there,” the seal said, ducking down to swim circles to the other side of the wolf. “Just in that cove.”

The seal directed the wolf through the water around an embankment of rocks. The dunes had given way to sand packed cliffs and carved hollows of stone. It was into one of these hollows that the seal finally pulled himself back onto land. The wolf waded out of the water, shaking droplets rom his body. 

“My fur still got all wet,” he groused, pulling the cloak from his shoulders to shake it out as well.

The seal peered out from around his own skin, and stool tall on the sand with a stretch. “You’ll dry. Now come here!”

He walked towards the cliff face, where years of water had pressed the beach further and further back without the land realizing, until the top of the cliff arched over the sand, making a half cave with smooth walls.

“If your howl is anywhere, it is here!” the seal said. He barked joyfully at his own cleverness, and the sound bounced from wall to wall, before leaping out over the water in a cascade of sound.

The wolf silently agreed that this would be a fine place for a howl to hide. However, when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

“Maybe you need to be wearing your skin?” the seal suggested.

The wolf crouched down to put on his still damp fur, and straightened back up, shoulders set. This time when he opened his mouth, a faint gasp of air escaped, but now howl.

The wolf tucked his tail between his legs, head hanging low. The seal stamped his foot.

“Yours must be a tricky howl,” he proclaimed. 

The wolf peaked out from behind his fur. “Do you think so?”

The seal nodded decisively. “It must be hiding somewhere we won’t be expecting.”

The wolf peaked out further. “Like where?”

“I don’t know yet, but we’ll find it!” The seal took the wolf’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. “Come on!”

The wolf was careful not to let his claws scratch the seal’s soft hand as he was guided over the rocks and down the shore. Eventually, the two ended up on a different stretch of beach, the seal pacing furiously through the surf in thought. The wolf was perched on a large boulder, naked knees drawn to his chest as he watched the moon descend closer to the edge of the horizon. He yawned.

The seal, bored of his pacing, scrabbled at the side of the boulder in an attempt to climb it. The wolf raised an eyebrow, and grabbed him by one flailing arm to pull easily to a seat beside him.

“Thanks!” The seal beamed.

The wolf looked down, face warm. “No problem.”

Twin orbs of brown fixed on the wolf. He pulled his black pelt closer around his shoulders. “What?”

“Do you think it might be a very small howl?” the seal asked.

The wolf ducked his head. “I don’t know. It could be.”

The seal smiled, all exhuberance and teeth, and flopped down into the water, only to emerge a moment later clutching an what the wolf could only describe as an oddly shaped rock. He stretched on his toes, holding the rock out to the wolf with one hand. He prodded at him. “Go on, take it!”

The wolf did. It was lighter than he expected, with pink and tan ridged textures under his fingers.

“Hold the shell to your ear,” the seal whispered, pressing close as he could with his toes digging into the sand.

Dubiously, the wolf did so. From within the shell, he heart the blowing echo of blood through a heart beat.

“My father used to say that conch shells hold the heart of the sea inside of them, no matter how far you go. If your howl was hiding, it might be in there.”

The wolf turned his head to look at the seal, whose brown eyes shone with the reflected light of the moon. 

“My howl is not in here,” he said, lowering his arm. He made to give the shell back, but the seal pushed it back into his hands. His blunted nails touched the wolf’s claws.

“No, you keep it. I’ll always have the sea with me.”

“Thank you,” the wolf said.

The moon touched the line of the horizon, rolling into the sea in earnest. Behind them, the sun colored the sky a hazy grey, orange stirring in the depths of the wispy clouds.

The wolf yawned, and pulled his fur back over himself. He leapt down from the rock, conch in his mouth. The seal, already wrapped in his own skin, wiggled his way back into the surf.

“I will see you tonight?” the seal asked, poking his head above the water. “Surely we will find your howl with more looking. I will think of new places for us to go.”

The wolf nodded his head in reply, not wanting to drop the conch, and scaled the crumbling sand hills back inland. He made a nest under a scraggly bush, and slept through the day with his ear pressed full of the sound of the ocean.

 

The next night, the wolf returned to the shore. The seal was already there, waiting, and burst from the surf in a flail of knobby knees and elbows. The wolf shed his fur quickly to catch his enthusiastic hug, eyes wide.

“Come, there is a cave in my cove where your howl might hide,” the seal said, drawing back. “We must dive to it, so I hope you don’t mind getting wet.”

The wolf shifted his fur, to tie it more securely around his shoulders. “Where?”

The seal’s smile shined as brightly as the stars reflected in the water. “Follow me!”

He slipped into the sea with hardly a ripple, bobbing back to the surface to make sure the wolf was following, before swimming away. Together, they swam along side the cliffs, past where the wave carved beaches ended, until they bobbed beside sheer stone faces, which sank into murky blackness. The seal barked at the wolf, and dove underwater.

Taking a deep breath, the wolf followed.

The seal led him under the rocks through a gap, nearly hidden by the holdfasts of brown kelp. The wolf struggled to keep up, his lungs burning as the darkness closed in. However, the hole was no longer than the length of his arm, and soon he was rising upwards. His head broke the surface with a gasp.

The space was dark, but specks in the water fluorescenced, casting a light bright enough for his eyes to catch. 

“This cave has always been under water, no one else can get inside,” the seal said, voice echoing off the walls. “Look up.”

The wolf did so, gasping at the shining spires of salt which glittered from where they hung on the ceiling like stars. He looked back at the seal, whose whiskers puffed out in pride, eyes glittering just as bright, if not more so, as the walls.

A hiccuping gasp stirred in the wolf’s chest, and he swam closer, treading water to bob next to his companion. 

“I do not think my howl is here either,” the wolf said.

“Oh.” The seal’s face fell.

“But we can keep looking.” The wolf’s words had the desired effect of brightening his companion’s expression.

“Tomorrow.” The seal promised. “Tomorrow we will find it!”

The wolf smiled, and placed a hand on the seal’s whiskery cheek. “Thank you,” he said, and kissed its pink nose.

Shocked, the seal sank in the water like a stone. He emerged a moment later, skin floating behind him like a cape, and rounded on the wolf.

“You nearly made me drown!”

The wolf flushed, water lapping at his chin. “Sorry.”

The seal drew closer, palm touching the wolf’s cheek, mimicking the other’s motion from before. “A little warning next time might be nice,” he said, and pressed his lips to the wolf’s.

 

The next night, the wolf waited on the beach. He sat, back straight, ears erect. The moon rolled from one horizon to the next, luxuriating between the gathering clouds on the horizon. The waves knocked against the shore with the urgent shushing of a multitude of secrets. The sun rose pink at his back.

The seal did not come.

The next night the wolf returned again, paws dragging through the sand, vigor lost with lack of sleep. The wolf curled up on the strand. Overhead the moon winked at him through the grey blackness of clouds, gibbous face turning away from the earth.

The wolf had nearly fallen asleep, when a familiar bark sent his to his feet with a yelp. Skin waving off his shoulders, the wolf high kneed it through the surf, half swimming, half wading around the point of the cliff into a familiar echoing cove.

A handful of fat brown bodies waddled on the sand, greeting the morning sun as it crested the edge of the cliff. The pod of seals looked up at his arrival, unimpressed at the splashing disturbing their morning rest.

“Who are you?” the largest seal barked. It had a large nose, and shoulders with more girth than the wolf’s.

“I am a wolf,” the wolf said, baring his sharp teeth. 

The large seal snorted, heaving itself to a height near equal with the wolf's. “What do you want wulfman?”

“I am looking for my friend,” the wolf said. “He has soft brown fur and eyes, and spots when he is and isn’t wearing his skin.”

The largest seal snorted at him again. “We do not take off our skins in my pod. You are not welcome here, go away.”

Resisting a growl, the wolf turned to go. However, before he want very far into the water, a young seal swam out after him.

“Wulfman! Wulfman, wait! You are looking for the one who leaves his fur, the Selkie?”

The wolf turned. “Yes. Do you know where he is?”

The little seal nodded, which caused his body to bob in the water. “He is my friend too. I don’t know where he is, but last time I saw him, he said he was going to swim to the village on the other side of the cove. He said he was helping a friend look for something.”

A stone settled low in the wolf’s stomach. Thanking the little seal, he waded back to his familiar stretch of beach.

The wolf knew of villages. While journeying from the mountains to the sea, he had passed around his fair share of them. He, like all of his kind, did not like the built structures of stone and wood. The creatures that lived inside them only had one skin, but many faces, and such things could not be trusted.

Casting his face to the wind, the wolf breathed deeply. Brine and salt coated the back of his nose and tongue, but, faintly, he could smell smoke. Tying his fur more securely around his shoulders, the wolf headed in the direction of the scent.

 

Atop the hills was a thin dirt track used by fishermen to get from one good beach to the next. The wolf walked next to it, his bare feet hardly touching the grasses and brush. His quick pace soon drew him closer to another traveler. The wolf breathed deeply. The man smelled of dust, brine, and liquor. A fishing pole was hung over one shoulder, and a bucket was tied under the pack across his back. Resisting the instinct to skirt around the human and hide under a bush, the wolf continued walking, fur on end.

As he passed, the man called out. “Hello stranger. I’ve never seen you in these parts before.”

The wolf flicked an ear, skirting a pace out of sync. “I’m traveling.”

The man smiled, eyes crinkling with crows feet to match the fading black of his hair. “I was about to sit down for lunch. Would you like to join me?”

The wolf had not eaten since the day before, and then it had only been a rock squirrel. His stomach clawed at his hips and spine. “Yes. I’m going to the village.”

His pack sagged where the man set it on a boulder beside the path, the leather straps creaking. Leaning with a joint cracking sag against the stone himself, the man unhooked the bucket from where it hung on his pack, and set it on the ground. It smelled of blood and watery flesh, with the cloying perfume of guts and brine.

“I don’t have much,” the man, reaching into a side pouch on his pack. “But what I have you are welcome to.”

The wolf pounced with no more invitation, clawed hands diving into the bucket to pull out the pale cuts of fish, which he stuffed between his teeth, hardly tasting the cold blood and salt in his hunger. 

The man watched him suck on an eyeball, two slices of bread and dried meat in his hand.

The wolf looked up from the empty bucket, picking at loose scales between his fangs as he eyed the remaining food in the man’s hand. A smile quirked the man’s sun browned skin, and he held out the salted meat, keeping the bread for himself. The wolf took it between his claws, and brought it to his lips, nibbling on the salty cut. It tasted of the sea, and the wood it had lied upon out in the sun to dry, and the old oiled leather pouch the man had pulled it from.

“You should eat your fill before you go into town. Some don’t like it if you take their goods without paying for it.”

The wolf hunched around his last bite of salted fish, stuffing it into his mouth, in case the man tried to take it back. He did not, but the wolf supposed the man knew better than to challenge an opponent so much bigger and younger than he.

The man munched on his bread, eyes closed against the rising glare of the sun. “Where have you traveled from?”

The wolf scratched his ear. “Mountains.”

“That is awfully far from here to be traveling with not even a shirt on your back. You look like you must have gone swimming, and lost your clothes.”

The wolf pulled his pelt more tightly around his shoulders.

The man reached into his pack again. “Here, let me lend you some clothes. You’ll stand out if you go into town.”

The wolf considered this, and accepted the bundle of linen the man gave him. They smelled of salt, sweat, and something familiar, which brought to mind conch shells and glowing caves. The wolf eyed the man’s own attire, and struggled his arms and head through the sewn tubes. His fur slipped off his shoulders as the wolf wrestled on the ground to pull on the light pants. 

The man picked it up. His fingers traced the thick pelt, eyes looking beyond the black hairs to some distant shore of memory. He held it out to the wolf, who had solved his pants problem well enough to stand. The wolf stretched out a hand to take back his fur, but the man did not let go. Dark brown eyes bore into the wolf’s own yellow.

“Never let anyone take this from you. Never lose it, never let it out of your sight.” The wolf tugged at his fur, and the man relented, letting it slide from his grip. 

“What are you called?” The man barked, as he watched the wolf tie his pelt securely around his waist, looping it through his pants to hold them up.

The wolf’s brows drew together. No one had need to call him. His family each knew with scent and song how to summon the rest of the pack, and the seal had only to speak for the wolf to know it was for him. His words were hesitant when he spoke. “My sisters have called me dark, for their fur is lighter than mine…?”

“Dark. Hm... I suppose I could just call you what you are, since you are a traveler.”

The wolf’s muzzle wrinkled. 

With a sigh, the man pushed himself back onto his feet, hands balancing on his hips as if to catch the crackling of his spine. “Well Traveler, it has been nice to meet you. If you are ever going this way again, I live on the beach on the far side of town past the strand. But now I must be going to catch more of my supper.” Sagging under the weight of his pack, the man took up his pole and bucket, and walked down the path, the opposite direction he had been going before.

The wolf tugged at the untied laces of his shirt collar, claws pricking through the thin cotton. Ahead he could smell smoke, and the cloying stench of accumulated humanity. He turned down towards it, and continued on his way.

 

The village was not small, nor was it as large as some of the places the wolf had skirted on his journey from the mountains. However the buildings which stood taller than his head formed a closed in wall, defending the inner most parts of the town, and the dirt path gave way to cobbles the closer it came to the town square.

The wolf stood between two of the outermost buildings, one shoulder brushing the wall of a building which smelled like drying meat and salts, the other pressed to a building who’s walls were cool in the morning shadows.

He breathed through his mouth, trying to suss out the different scents. However what smell of seal he picked out was dead and dry, from the building at his side. The wolf peered in through the door, but saw only cuts and skins drying on racks. He ventured deeper into the village, breathing through the blanket of sea scent and salt which covered everything the breeze touched.

In the center of the town was a fountain with water cascading from one low turret into the basin. The wolf lowered his face to drink, eyes watchful. From the beach far below the cliff face where the town rested, he could hear men pulling boats back onto the shore. A few began their way up the twisting cliff path back to the town.

Footsteps behind him made the wolf pull back, bearded face dripping.

A woman carrying a jug eyed him disdainfully, before rounding to the fountain’s other side. She turned a knob connected to a spout attached to the fountain. As water splashed into her jug, the wind turned, pulling her errant hair and scent in the wolf’s direction. When the jug was filled, she capped it, and hoisted it onto her shoulder, before walking away.

The wolf looked down, eyes vacant slits as he listened to her walk from cobbles to dirt. A creak of oil gliding hinges and the jostle of water as she shifted her grip to open a door. The wood scraped against soft stone as it closed, the hollow click echoing through three floors and open windows. However, the wolf could still scent the faint impressions of conch shells and seal fur he had found on the woman’s fingers. As his senses focused in on the house, he could hear other heart beats tapping as they attended to tasks on the ground floor. A faster rhythm patterned, alone, in the top most floor of the building, like a fish knocking against the sides of a barrel.

Leaving his perch, the wolf stalked towards the house. He sniffed around the perimeter, before circling around the back, where a small garden lay fenced in. Placing his clawed hands on the cut smooth walls, the wolf stared up into the window, which fluttered open just above where he could reach.

A whine broke in the back of his throat, high and questioning. 

From inside the first floor, he could hear the banging of metal, and a pair of booted feet stomp towards the back door, yelling something about stray dogs after the chickens again.

The wolf ran before the woman could open the door and see him. He hid under a scrubby bush well away from the village and path, fur pulled tightly around himself.

The fishermen returned from their boats with the day’s catch, tired and smelling of brine and whiskey. Women greeted them in the square and in doors, proffering food and drink and companionship. The sun dipped into the water, and orange lamps winked on to replace its glow. Only later, with the half moon high overhead, did the wolf stir from his hiding place. The last lamp in town, at the bedside of an old seamstress, extinguished with a hiss.

The wolf padded over the dirt and cobbles, until he was once again standing behind the three storied house. He placed his claws against the wall, searching with all of his senses.

The woman from before snored in a room off the kitchen, while on the second floor an older man breathed deeply in a muffling bed of feathers. Then on the top most floor, behind the window right in front of him, a familiar dancing heartbeat. Footsteps, so light as to not be there. The creak of wood, a window sash being lowered.

“My wolf.” The seal peered down at him, fingers poised at the edge of the glass window. 

“You did not meet me on the beach. I came to find you.”

His smile did not compliment the deep bruises under his eyes, nor did it make the still tender cut on his lip any less obvious. “I am sorry. A man stole my fur. I was made to go with him.”

Claws scored deeply into the soft stone of the wall. “Why would he do such a thing? Does he mean to eat you?”

“No. He believes my presence will bring him good fortune at sea, where his ships sail far to trade. He was disappointed that I could not be a bride for him, so he means to tie me to his daughter. Her eyes are like stone and burn like coral when she looks upon me, and I do not wish to be in her presence.”

A high whine sounded from the wolf’s throat. “Jump down and I will catch you, so you can come with me instead.”

The seal shook his head. “I can’t leave without my fur. If I go too far away from where it is hid, I will go mad. It happened to my mother; a man stole her fur thinking it a fine coat. She could no longer swim, and after a season her mind slipped away like sand in the tide.”

“Then I will kill the man for you.”

He shook his head again. “I heard the man tell his daughter to burn my fur, and with it my life, should anything befall him.”

The wolf gnashed his teeth. “No! I will not let them!” Scaling the wall, his muscles hardly taxed as he pulled himself with his claws dug into the tiny cracks of mortar, the wolf reached the seal’s window.

The seal drew back, wide brown eyes blinking, reflecting starlight. Leaning over the wooden sill, the wolf cupped the seal’s face in his hands, and breathed in the scent of brine, conch shells, and the peculiar sparky fuzz unlike any other creature the wolf had ever come across.

Yellow met brown, as the wolf opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them.

“I will find your fur,” he promised, holding the seal’s gaze. 

The seal’s smile was small, and more than a little sad. “Run back to your mountain, or back to the sea. Anywhere but here, for I can’t abide the thought of you being imprisoned like I am.”

“No,” growled the wolf. “I know your scent, I will find your fur.”

The seal sighed. “You have three days. At the setting of the sun on the sun’s day, I will be wed. Though coerced, our kind cannot break a vow, and I will be bound here.”

“I will come for you before then, and both of us will return to the beach.”

Dry lips brushed the tip of the wolf’s nose. 

“You are as beautiful as your words,” the seal said. “I will keep both the man and his daughter out of the house as much as I am able, so that you may search. They watch me too closely for me to do it on my own.”

“I will wait nearby.”

With a final kiss, the wolf fled into the twilight, the town already waking with the sun over the land.

 

The first day, the seal was as good as his word, and he led both the merchant and his daughter to the shore away from the house, saying how if they wished for luck on their voyages, he would need to see their ships.

The wolf waited again under his bush, until the sounds of the man and his daughter descending the slope to the sea had faded. The man tottered, unsteady on his shaking limbs, but he held onto the seal with an iron grip, while his daughter supported his other side. The wolf longed to follow, to pounce and tear, but knew he could not. Not yet. 

Sneaking out from his hiding place, the wolf made sure his fur was tied tightly around his waist, before stalking into the town. A few humans milled about the fountain and shops, but the wolf paid them no mind as he approached the big house on the edge of the town. No hearts beat within the walls, other than a nest of door mice in the cupboard. A cat hissed at the wolf from under a bush of tomatoes in the garden, but it did not approach, and the wolf had more things than hunger on his mind.

Scaling the stone wall, like he had done the night before, the wolf approached the seal’s window, and dug his claws underneath the wood to pry it up. It was unlocked, just as the seal had promised, and slid open easily. The wolf crawled into the room, careful to close the window behind himself. He stood for a moment, breathing in the smell of brine and conch shells left in the room, but the scent was second hand, left from the seal’s fevered pacing about the room, not from his fur.

Carefully, the wolf nosed his way into the hall, shoulders brushing against the close walls. His head cast about into each room, but they only smelled of undisturbed dust. A twisting staircase led down to the second floor, where the man’s large bedroom, with its thick feather bed resided. The wolf nosed through the pillows, under the wood frame, through every drawer and closet in the wardrobe, but the fur was not there. He caught faintly a memory of conch shells and sparks on the wood dresser by the mirror, but the scent was faded, like a puddle in the sunshine.

Taking heart that he had caught even a whiff of his goal, the wolf descended down a much grander staircase, with straight ascents and wide plateaus by the railing, to the ground floor. The entry way still held the fresh scents of habitation, and the wolf skirted close to the walls, passing by the dining room and parlor, until he arrived at the kitchen. Sharp garlic and spices pierced the back of his throat, making him sneeze. The wolf coughed, scrubbing at his face to dislodge the varied mixing scents, before daring to breathe again. There, underneath the sleep lick of steel, dried meats, and condiments, the familiar spark of conch shells.

The wolf rummaged through the cupboards, carelessly leaving the doors open in his wake, but no fur could be found behind the tea sets an china. The door mice scattered as he approached the fireplace, nose wrinkling at the still glowing ashes and smoke. 

At last, the wolf came to a door. The scent of the man’s daughter was strongest within. He opened the door, knob cold against the palm of his hand.

The room had a single bed, and a vanity, upon which rested a silver backed mirror. The wolf stalked three steps inside, knees brushing the edges of the furniture. In the mirror, pointed ears twitched back and forth, as the wolf scented the room, the shape dark furred and hulking. He could smell conch shells, sparks, salt, and secrets, as if the seal’s fur had brushed lightly against everything in a sweeping whirl of skirts. The wolf leaned close to the vanity, nose pressed nearly to the polished wood where fur had touched the longest. He nudged under the bedframe, and through the folded dresses in the drawers. His fingers ran over cotton and wool, and very briefly silk, but not fur.

The seal’s skin was not here. Though it had been, very recently.

The wolf heard a bark ascending the cliffs from the sea. The seal and his captors were returning. The wolf returned to the kitchen, and shut the daughter’s room behind him, as well as the cupboards lining the walls. He climbed the stairs, half an ear focused on the tottering old man crunching his way along the path, and his vice grip on the seal’s shoulder. Re-entering the room where the seal was kept at the top of the house, the wolf opened the window, and leapt lightly back into the garden.

 

That night, the moon had nearly gone, only a sliver of crescent light visible in the sky, like a smiling cat, all teeth.

From under his bush, the wolf could hear the seal pacing, bare feet pattering against stone and wood. The daughter, having finished with the dishes from their evening meal, entered her room for the first time since that morning. The wolf could hear her opening drawers and lifting cloth, her movements becoming more stilted and sharp. She lit a candle with a rasping scratch of wood, before whirling from her room to the staircase.

The wolf lifted his head as she ascended, heart picking up pace in his chest. He could hear the quiet clang of iron bumping against the wood walls, and the clenching of her fingers around the pan’s handle. She was already on the top floor, when the wolf sprang to his feet, fur on end where it was draped around his shoulders.

He did not hear the low angry words she hissed to the seal, too busey trying to pull his constraining clothing free from the branches of the bush, who’s thick cover he once appreciated. He did not hear the seal’s reply, two legs stumbling in a step where once there were four. He heard her strike, though, and he smelled blood.

The back of his throat burned with a silent scream, a wail longing to come out, to call home, but the wolf pushed it back, in favor of skirting the edges of the village to the big house. When he arrived underneath the window behind which the seal was held, the daughter had returned to her room beside the kitchen. He clawed his way up the smooth stones, and pushed the windowsill open.

The seal sat on the bed, limbs curled close to his chest, one finger prodding at the welt on his temple, and his sluggishly bleeding lip. The wolf touched his shoulder, and he flinched, eyes snapping up. The seal tried to smile, but his swollen lips fumbled the movement into a grimace.

“Why did she do that?” the wolf asked, crouching beside his companion. “You were not challenging her authority, you did not steal her food. Why did she strike you?”

Brown eyes looked down to yellow. “She thought I was, I think. But humans don’t need much reason to club seals around the head, in my experience.” His chest rattled with a held back bark of laughter, but the wolf remained silent.

“If she comes in here again,” he said, settling beside his companion on the bed. “I will bite her. Then I will bite the man, if he comes up here. Then we will leave this place.”

“Did you find my fur?” the seal asked, in place of a reply.

The wolf nudged his shoulder with his head. “No.”

“Then we can’t do that.”

“Not yet,” the wolf agreed.

The seal said nothing, just leaned into his friend’s side.

 

The wolf escaped the house in the early morning, climbing through the window and down the stone wall, when the resident’s of the house began to stir. Whispered plans in the night compelled him to join the fishermen as they descended the cliff cut path to the beach, where their boats bobbed, half grounded in the sand.

They did not see him, too focused on watching their footing to notice a black wolf leaping from outcroppings of brush and sand, a bundle of cloth in its mouth. 

He left the shirt and linen pants on a boulder, and dug his four sets of toes deeply into the sand. The fishermen pushed the small vessels past the weak surf of the harbor and into the beds of kelp, poles and nets waggling like insect wings. Past the forests under the water, a large ship bobbed, anchored fast.

The seal had said the merchant’s ship, would have few sailors aboard, all of them having been granted leave and gone to larger places down the coast. Only the captain, the merchant’s last remaining son, remained on the vessel, ever vigilant against those who might steal the last of his family’s fortune.

Tying his fur around his neck, the wolf dove into the water. Salt splashed into his eyes and mouth, making them burn, and he often had to stop and kick down hard to lift his head above the undulating waves to re-orient himself to the horizon. When he reached the ship he was panting. The wolf clung to the slimy wood, dotted here and there with rocky barnacles, eyes lifted to the deck, which seemed so far away after his swim. There was no ladder or rope on the ship’s side for him to grab onto, and the wolf circled predatorily in the water. 

Eventually, he came across a heavy chain, coated even more with algae and slime then the rest of the ship’s hull. Below, the chain vanished into inky blue blackness, but above, it hung just close enough to the deck that the wolf thought he wouldn’t need much effort to climb the rest of the way. He swam to the chain, and though the cold iron burnt his hands, he dug his fingers into the spaces between the links, and climbed. 

When he reached the top of the anchor, he dug his claws into dry wood, and pulled himself over the railing and onto the deck.

There was a sharp click, and the direction of the wind changed, bringing from behind the wolf the sweat and paper scent of a man.

“Don’t move,” the man said. 

The wolf turned his head to see the man brandishing a tube of metal on a wood carved pommel. He recognized the shape and its purpose, from the times he had ventured too close to the pastures of slow delicious grass eaters in the valleys. Such a thing, with it’s banging and scent of burning, had taken his father.

He growled low in his chest, the sound making the man’s grip on his weapon tighten.

“I said don’t move!” he said again, as the wolf moved fully to face him. The man had fair hair and blue eyes, deep with worried sorrow. The hand not holding the gun clutched at his chest, holding the end of a dark worn leather strap, which hung about his neck. It smelt of sparks.

“Where is the seal’s skin?” the wolf growled.

The man took a step back, gun falling, but not quite entirely pointing away. “You’re like that boy my father brought here yesterday, aren’t you.”

The wolf bared his teeth, feeling the hairs on the fur tied around his shoulders stand on end. “Where is it?”

“It was supposed to bring us luck, you know.” The man’s eyes had hollowed, going distant, while his grip on the leather around his neck tightened. “When my father stole it while an apprentice on a fishing boat, he thought he would sell it for gold. Then the next day he dove for clams, and brought back pearls. He took a piece of the coat and that first pearl, and made this necklace, which he used to court my mother. Then he tore up the rest of it to weave into the knots of the sails of his first merchant ship, and from there it wasn’t hard to get enough money to move into the city, away from this place.”

His voice was flat. “It did bring us luck, but then my mother fell overboard, and her skirts pulled her under, just after my sister was born. The necklace then went to my eldest brother, and that was all we got back of him after the fleet was sunk in a storm. Then my next eldest brother left it behind with his clothes when he walked into the waves. And now it’s come to me, and my father’s come back here, because he only believes in the kinds of superstitions that promise wealth without a cost.”

The wolf’s gaze never left the gun during the man’s story. “Where is it?”

His eyes refocused on the wolf. “I don’t know where he hid that boy’s fur coat. I would tell you if I did. My father did a bad thing, and is trying to do it again. You can’t steal from the sea, she always gets her due. It’s going to kill my sister, and it’s already killed me.”

Claws flexed at the ends of the wolf’s fingers. “Where.”

“I told you, I don’t know! Father gave it to my sister, because she’s too young to remember enough to believe these things, and I don’t know where she’s hidden it for him! I would have burned the damn thing if I laid eye on it!”

The wolf snarled, and the sailor flinched, gun lowering. The wolf pounced. He slammed the sailor’s back against the deck, and with a swipe of his claws, had the seal skin necklace in his fist. He smelt blood in the air, and the sailor didn’t move when the wolf got up off him. He sniffed through every nook and cranny of the ship, but found nothing that smelt of sparks, save the slip of old leather already in his fist.

With a dismissive sniff at the sailor, whose chest had stopped moving, the wolf leapt off the ship back into the water, and swam to shore.

 

That night, the wolf tried to climb the wall to get into the seal’s prison, but the window was locked.

He pressed his eyes against the glass, but saw only a stripped bare bed, the mattress overturned on its side against the opposite wall. A cold stone of dread settled in the pit of the wolf’s stomach, and he dropped back into the garden.

Closing his eyes and blocking out the mantra of ‘not yet not yet, I had more time’, he listened. 

There on the second floor, the merchant breathing stutteringly in his feather bed. In the room off the kitchen, the daughter lying still beside her vanity. His brow furrowed, straining his ears. Then, quiet, below the kitchen flagstones, a painfully slow heartbeat.

The wolf whined in the back of his throat. He couldn't smell his seal’s condition, the stagnant air of the house keeping any scents locked away behind brick and stone. He wanted to call out, but knew any bark or shout he uttered would be swallowed by the earth before it could touch its intended ear. He paced the dirt scratched corners of the garden, the urge building like a clogging pressure in the back of his throat.

He wanted to break down the door, to push aside the merchant and his daughter like he had the sailor, and carry the seal with him back to the stretch of beach by the sand dunes and cliffs. He wanted to show the seal such treasured places he knew in the valleys and mountains of his home, to watch him swim in the crystal lakes, and wipe the pure cool water out of his eyes with a barking laugh.

A hollow wail broke free of the wolf’s mouth, as the pressure behind his eyes and tongue reached a crescendo. It permeated every corner of the village, knocking walls and reverberating back again from the cliffs. ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ it howled, ‘Come back to me!’

“Damn coyotes!” the daughter said inside the house, flinging herself from her bed with a slam of sheets against the opposite wall. She stomped to the door, a long gun propped on her shoulder pointing out into the garden, but the wolf had already fled.

He hid by the fountain, until all the startled candles in the village windows once again went out, then crept back to the big house.

“My wolf, my wolf,” came the seal’s quiet chant. “I heard your voice, I found my fur. The merchant’s daughter spun around the room with it across her shoulders, and struck me with cold iron when I tried to get it back. Now she’s locked me in the cellar, and sent my skin to be sewn into a winter coat. The fastest horse set out at sunset. Please hear me, oh sea, please...My wolf, my wolf…”

The wolf whined in the back of his throat. Claws scratching at the brick pavement, as if he could dig all the way down to where his seal lay in the dark. He pulled his fur around himself, shedding shirt ties and pants as he crouched low on all fours. Nose to the wind, the wolf sprang out of the garden.

Everpresent salt and brine caressed the back of his tongue, but the wolf cut the smell of the sea from his perception as background information. At his back the village slept, full of sun browned bodies, their trappings, their cooking fires, and all the other miscellaneous tastes of humanity. The wolf pushed further, closing his eyes.

There, up the coast, hoof beats, two hearts, a burst of sparks.

The wolf’s paws were already moving before he opened his eyes. 

Past the cliff cut path and the beach with all its sand bound boats, over the rolling dunes and fly biting grass, on and up away from the crashing waves towards the rising sun.

 

The horse displayed no urgency in its travel, the rider not knowing the value of his cargo when he was roused from his planned night’s sleep with a fur parcel and orders for the tailor in the next town. The road was clear, like the moonless sky, save for the occasional scrub of brush supporting itself in the packed sandy dirt. The outline of the village at his back had already blurred into the horizon a few miles in the distance. A lantern hung from his saddle to light the way, though both horse and rider were sure footed through practice. The horse huffed, shaking its head in the reigns to look past its blinders, but the rider soothed a hand across its neck, and it stilled. His eyes closed in a yawn-

With a jolt, the fist the rider had raised to his mouth smashed into his teeth, as a black cannonball slammed into his side, knocking to the ground with a rib cracking crunch. His legs twisted in the stirrups, pulling joints and scattering saddlebags. The horse squealed, saddle askew, reared up on its hind legs, and bolted into the darkness, taking the lamp’s orange circle of light with it.

The predator astride him looked like a man at first glance, but its features were too unkempt, with sharp edges and wild countenance. Its yellow eyes stared down at the rider, set in a seemingly bland expression, until one noticed the teeth, those teeth were not the teeth of a man, set as they were in a snarl. In the detached panic one often encounters, the rider guessed the lack of expression was more from not understanding how expressions work on a human face, than a lack of fury.

“Where is the seal’s fur?” Its voice was low and moaning, with barked cadences to emphasize the consonants of communication.

The rider’s head swam, and he could feel an increasing tick of pain in his ribs and back with each thunderous beat of the heart in his chest. He opened his mouth, but all that escaped was a gasping whimper.

The predator growled, a sound too deep for a human throat, and pushed itself off him and rolled back onto its feet in a crouch. It was naked, and the rider would have averted his eyes out of modesty, were he capable of unearthing himself from the buzzing shock still paralyzing his pained frame.

It dug through the saddlebags, seams tearing as it threw aside letters and packages, before settling on one, a lumpy parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied shut with twine. The creature held it to his face, and tore the brown paper away, revealing a skein of light brown fur.

In the ooze of twilight scuttling away under the pink painted sky, the rider could make out how the predator’s eyes were closed, as if a line of tension had slid from its body. When he would retell this story, after being plied with many drinks, the rider would swear up and down that he had rallied himself, and fought the creature off before it could make off with the mail. However, a few more would pull the admittance that the creature did no more than look at him, and walk away. Not before picking up the fine fur cape it must have dropped during its attack though, and throwing it across its shoulders.

 

The wolf dared not fall back onto four paws while carrying such a precious cargo. His own fur tied tightly around his neck, the wolf cradled the seal’s skin in his arms, petting the errant hairs back into place where they had scuffed and rubbed against the rough brown paper wrappings. It smelled strongly of the merchant’s daughter, as if she had kept it tucked close to her person for a long time, and the wolf tried his best to pet away those scents as well, as if he could rub away the stagnant tarnish of the land to reveal the silver sea beneath. 

He jogged over the dunes, feet sliding and sinking in the soft strata in a way they hadn’t during his fevered hunt before. The sun was a hand’s span over the distant mountain points of the horizon, when he reached the edge of the cliff path. Boats rocked on the shore, but the wolf didn’t spare a glance to wonder why the fishermen were not out fishing that day. When he reached the outskirts of the town, his loping jog slowed. Closing his eyes, the wolf listened.

No sounds came from the merchant’s big house, not was there anyone else about in the street, save an exaltation of sparrows by the fountain. He heard the echoing murmuring of a crowd bouncing muffled between stone walls. A heartbeat he had etched into the corners of his mind bumped amid the sea of battering fellows.

Fingers soothing a spot on the seal’s skin, the wolf stalked towards the sounds of life. 

 

The building where the village had congregated was beside the fountain in the town square. It had no more floors than the other one roomed cottages in the square, however a pointed spire jutted into the sky. At the spire’s top, a bell rang softly, as an ocean breeze swayed it. The tall double arched doors were propped open with little hooks along the walls. Inside, rows of seated figures resolutely faced a slightly raised part of the floor, where an old man in black robes spoke, while holding a book. On an altar behind him, several candles on metal posts burned.

The wolf saw his seal standing, eyes downcast, in front of the dark robed man with the merchant’s daughter, who woar white. His bare feet crossed the doorway, dusty toes splayed on cool brick. The assembled humans murmured as he stalked down the aisle, clad only in his skin, the seal’s fur tucked into the crook of his arm.

His seal looked up when the murmurs grew into queries and rising voices. The wolf paid no mind. He stepped close to the seal, yellow eyes seeing only brown. 

“I found your fur.” His voice was quiet, private.

The seal’s gaze never waivered from the wolf’s, and he stretched out his fingers.

“No!” Came a furious scream from the merchant’s daughter. She lunged at the wolf, tugging the skein of fur from his arms. It slipped free from his loosened grip, stolen a second away from being returned.

The seal cried out a gasp, fingers reaching out to follow his fur’s movement, and the wolf growled.

“That’s mine!” she screamed. She jabbed a finger at the seal, fur clutched in a fist at her side. “And he’s mine too! Stop ruining everything!”

“I am no one’s!” The seal barked, glaring around the bruises marring his face. “Least of all yours!”

Her shriek spoke murder. “I have the fur! I have the luck! And you’re mine too!” She threw out the hand holding the fur, right above the cluster of holy candles on the alter.

It should not have burned. The soft supple strands of fur, smoother than any oiling could have achieved, should not have curled back from the small orange wick. The leather should not have singed at the lightest curl of smoke from the flame, yet black ribbons scarred themselves across the unmarred skin.

The seal screamed, collapsing to the brick floor, hands clawing at his shoulders and back, as if to rip away an attacker. The eyes of the merchant’s daughter, as well as her white slice of a smile, reflected the candle flames, her grip unyielding as a stone. The black robed man touched his hand to his forehead and across his shoulders in quick succession, book clutched to his chest from where he had retreated off the stage at the wolf’s approach. The gathering in the pews rose up like a tide, some spilling out into the square, while a few brave souls made for the alter.

The wolf stood, hands partially outstretched, as if to catch a falling body. His fingers curled into claws above his palms. His black hair stood on end. He pounced.

Red arched, and the merchant’s daughter gurgled as her screams were cut into fevered shards by the wolf’s teeth sinking into her arm. The bone shattered, and her grip on the peld died. With a shake the wolf threw her aside onto the altar, upsetting the long candles, and snatched the skin before it touched the floor.

The merchant’s daughter cried with more parts pain than anger, and the dried array of flowers around her caught fire. The wood of the altar began to smoke, and she writhed as the flames licked the edges of her dress, scorching the white a sooty, curling black. 

The mass in the pews hurried faster in their forked directions, punctuated with high screams and low yells. Some reached for the burning girl, trying to pull her blistering form from the fire, others tried to staunch the bleeding from her arm, which flowed in red rivers to the floor. One figure limped from the mass, shoulders that were once strong now hunched from years leaned over a money desk.

“That creature is mine!” the merchant hissed, spit flicking from between his gapped teeth. He stood in front of the seal, who had stilled on the stones, a rock in a flurry of movement.

However he posed no obstacle to the wolf.

With a snarl, the wolf shoved past the old man, who staggered back. His shin struck the side of a pew, and he fell back, legs cut out from under him. His head struck the floor with a hollow crack like a melon, but the wolf did not wait to watch whether he would get up. 

Gathering the seal in his arms with his pelt, the wolf leapt through one of the colored glass windows of the building out onto the street. People screamed and scattered, but the wolf only tightened his grip around the cargo in his arms, as he ran out of the village.

The sun traveled past its highest point and down close to the horizon by the time the wolf began to slow. Familiar scents of dune grass and the faint barks of seals echoing off cove cliffs permeated the air around him. The seal had not woken up during the hurried journey back to their beach.

The wolf’s bare feet slid in the wind piled sand as he descended to the shore, where the tide had pressed the grains into a hardier surface. The water licked his skin, cold sending pricks of sensation up through his thighs. Wading into the surf, careless of his own pelt around his waist becoming logged with water, the wolf lowered his arms, and his burden into the waves.

Shiny burns, still red and tender, colored the seal’s back, matching the singed spots on his pelt, which he held fast in a white knuckled grip.. The water tugged at his short hair and fur, spreading both out in a halo, and the wolf wrapped the fur more securely around the seal’s form. He stroked a clawed hand over the other’s cheek.

“My seal, open your eyes. I found your fur, I brought you here. Please, open your eyes, for even the beauty of the sun sinking fire into the ocean while the moon watches, pales when not reflected in your gaze.”

“Your skill for poetry is wanting,” the seal mumbled, creasing one golden brown eye open.

The wolf huffed, corners of his mouth twisting together. “I can take the words back, if they displease you.”

The seal wriggled, freeing his legs to stand in the circle of the wolf’s embrace, fur sticking wet to soothe his burnt back. “No,” he said, leaning so his fingers teased the wolf’s furry face. “You gave them to me, they are mine.” the freckles along his chin quirked upwards. “Though I might be persuaded to give them back, for something else in exchange.”

The wolf bent close. “You have been in the village too long, you sound human with your talk of trade and owning.”

“Well, my father was a human, so perhaps I got such tendencies from him.” The seal rocked back on his toes, water swirling around his waist. The wolf misjudged the distance between their faces with the movement, and bashed his nose and lips against the top of the seal’s head. 

“Ouch!” The seal wrinkled his nose, and rubbed the top of his head. “I only just got back, and you’re already trying to eat me.”

Licking away a drop of blood where a fang had cut his lip, the wolf glared down at his companion, his lips twitching away from their flat line despite himself. “I admit, that might be better for my state of being in the long run.”

Huffing, the seal smacked a hand against his chest. “Well fine, I won’t tell you what I just remembered then.”

He made to pull away, but the wolf tightened his hold around the other’s waist. “No, now you must tell me.”

“No, I must not. Besides, I seem to have completely forgotten it.” The seal turned up his nose, and, twisting sideways in his confinement, he wrapped his skin tight around himself, and ducked under the water.

He emerged past the surf, dark nose twitching, whiskers stretched over the mischievous twist of his muzzle. With a bark, he dove backwards under the water, which looked to be painted the deepest black under the fire of sunset. 

The wolf stood amid the waves, heart beating too full in his chest. Then, tying his pelt securely around his waist, he gave chase.

 

The seal swam around the cove, resplendent with his fins in the water for what seemed an age. The wolf had cut a splashing line through the rocks and above the kelp beds, never quite able to reach his frolicing companion, and retired to lie on the sand when his limbs grew too heavy to stay afloat.

“I remember what I was going to tell you,” the seal said, pulling his bulk, fin over fin to lie beside the wolf in the sand dunes. 

He flicked a canid ear, ignoring the urge to stand and shake what moisture had clung to his fur, in favor of huffing out a long sigh.

“Hey!” The seal nudged him with a pointed snout.

The wolf flicked him with his tail, prompting a pointed bark.

There was a rustling of fur, then long clever fingers dug into the joints where the wolf’s legs met his belly, scratching mercilessly. The wolf writhed, spine curving upwards as his paws flailed in the air, fingers of his own poking through to catch his companion’s. The seal smirked as the wolf held his hands captive. 

“So you do live.”

The wolf growled lightly, prompting a barking guffaw.

Shaking their clasped hands, the seal said, “I remembered what I was going to tell you, before!”

“So tell me then, and let me rest.”

“No, not yet.” He scrambled to his feet, pulling the wolf along with him. “Walk with me around the cove.”

Deliberately the wolf let his greater bulk weigh down the other’s excitement, keeping himself lounging in the sand. “Around the cove is from where we just came. Did you not have enough of the village for this life?”

“I doubt a merchant will club me across the head again to rob me of my fur, especially with such a ferocious guard at my side. And we will not go that far. Come, please?” His heels dug into the ground, as he leaned far back in an attempt to pull the placid wolf to his feet.

Relenting, the wolf allowed himself to be rocked upright, only to drape his furry frame around the seal. “I will bite any who try to come near you.” He punctuated the words with a grin of long incisors.

“I would expect no less,” the seal sang back, wriggling, so the wolf was forced to support his own weight.

 

Together the two walked across the dunes and up the crumbling cliff side. For all his bravo, the seal remained close to his companion’s side, one hand clutching the knot of his fur around his neck. The wolf watched every movement under the moonlight with harsh yellow eyes, and held the seal’s pale trailing fingers tightly in his own.

The dirt packed path was familiar to the wolf. With the present’s moonlight casting a ghostly glow on the land, he could still smell his fast self’s passage along this very route to the village. There was where he brushed his leg against a bush, there where his anxiety soured the air with uncertainty. He squeezed the seal’s fingers to assure himself of the other’s presence, and earned a flickering smile in return.

“Down this way,” the seal said, tugging them towards an offshoot down the side of a cliff. The smoke and humanity of the village faintly touched the breeze licking its way along the path, but it was still too far away for any light or sound to reach them.

Dancing down the cliff face like a goat, instead of the marine creature he was, the seal soon was on the shore floor. Pushed back against the cliff face, a cottage on wood stilts squatted amid the stones. Racks of fish dried handing from the roof. A short ladder led up to a small stoop and door, where one lantern hung lit on a hook. 

The seal dashed towards the structure before the wolf had reached the sand, and his companion’s heart lurched in anticipation. Tripping the last few steps of his climb, legs tangling in a way they had not since he first stood only on two, the wolf loped to intercept his companion. However, the seal had already climbed the short ladder to the door. The wolf caught the fist before it could knock. 

“What are you doing?” he growled. “Are you so eager to be captured again in the home of a man?”

The seal wriggled his fingers plaintively, elbows poking the wolf as he tried to turn on he cramped stoop. “He would never do that. He’s the one I was coming to see, when the merchant and his men caught me.”

Wrinkling his nose, the wolf opened his mouth to reply.

The door opened.

“Mischief, I’ve told you not to keep guests waiting on the doorstep.” 

The seal grinned, more parts jubilant than repentant. “Sorry father!”

The old man standing in the doorway was sun browned, and smelled of sea salt and dried fish. His eyes flicked to the wolf “Dark Derek, it’s good to see you again.”

“You lent me the shirt and pants.” The hairs along the back of the wolf’s neck began to settle. “I lost them when I was running from the village.”

The old man fixed the seal with a paternally accusatory stare. “No doubt you have been dragged into quite the adventure. First come in, the air is warm, but my eyes need more light these days.”

A wide shelf spanned the back wall of the cabin, consisting of planks nailed directly into the walls at intervals, and a salt stiffened rope hanging from the ceiling, supporting the end corners.The top most shelf had two thick leather bound stacks of paper, one which bore a cracked cross of lines on the spine, and the other a globe decorated with splashed continents. Lines of shells and shiny rocks, like those a child might be attracted to pick up, surrounded the books, as well as a few rough carvings of wood. The rest of the shelves held collections of hooks, lines, and knives. The lowest shelf, longer than the rest, was rough with worked projects and old blade marks. A bed padded with blankets hung behind the door, and a chest was tucked by the leftmost wall.

The old man walked to the back wall after shutting the door behind his guests, and lit another lantern, casting the cabin in a warm orange glow.

“Can I offer you two anything to eat or drink?” he asked.

The seal shook his head, one hand moving through the air as if to shape his words, while the other was still held by the wolf. “No father, I came to ask for your help.” Big brown eyes met yellow, as the seal’s voice gained the intimate lilt of explanation. “My father taught me to read, and anything he doesn’t know, his books know. If anyone knows where your howl has hid, it is him!”

The wolf blinked owlishly, brows curling together. “But I have already found my howl. You said you heard me when I called for you, when you were trapped below ground.”

Now it was the seal’s turn to blink. “Is that what a howl is?” He bat at the wolf’s shoulder in playful dismay. “You spoke of it as a thing! If I had known we were only looking for your singing voice, this would have been much easier!”

The wolf tucked his head between his hunching shoulders, but the seal only hit him in the chest again. “None of that! Now you must howl for me all the time when I want! So I know what it is if ever you lose it again!”

The old man watched the wolf and the seal, took note of their twined fingers and close stance, and sighed. “My son surely lives up to his name sake.” A loose smile touched the edges of his lips, as his eyes grew misty. “Just like his mother.”

 

Later, after the old man had retired to his hammock, complaining of his son putting him into an early grave, the seal and the werewolf sat together on the sand, watching the starlight reflected in the moonless water.

“Your father is your only pack left?” the wolf asked.

The seal turned his head, which was propped on the wolf’s shoulder. “Yes. I’m friends with some of the littler seals, like Spotty Scotty, but… Yes, it’s just us.”

“Thank you for letting me meet him.”

The seal wriggled his neck. “Of course.”

The grey sky streaked with the beginnings of pink, while the deepest black still touched the horizon of the sea.

“You have shown me your home, I would wish to show you mine,” the wolf said.

“I do not think I could walk so far into the land,” the seal said poking his companion in the side. “Do they have oceans in your home for me to swim in?”

“There is a lake in the mountains, and many rivers run down to the valleys.” The wolf shifted his shoulder to meet a brown laughing eye. He licked his lips, every fur on his pelt standing on end, save where the seal’s cheek pushed them flat. “And, if you tire of walking on two legs, you may borrow my fur to walk on four?”

Slowly, the seal’s neck straightened, though his back still bent close enough for their faces to be level. Brown eyes darted across his features, before settling on the wolf’s piercing yellow gaze.

A smile split the seal’s face into a crescent moon of pearls.

“Then,” he said, leaning close enough for his lips to brush the wolf’s jaw. “It is only fair for mine to be yours too, for so long as you would have me.”

The wolf closed the distance between them completely.

 

And while they did not live happily thereafter, they were truly happy there, and in the way of this world, that can be the most important thing.

...


End file.
